Type A and Type B assisted living licences in Texas
Texas licenses every assisted living facility as Type A or Type B. The difference is not size, price or comfort. It is whether the state believes the residents living there can get themselves out of the building in a fire.
That single distinction decides how the facility must be staffed overnight, how the building must be built, and who it is allowed to admit. HHSC publishes the letter in its licensing roster and explains it nowhere a family will look, which is why every assisted living page on this site decodes it.
What each licence permits
Type A licence
Residents must be able to evacuate the building without help.
A Type A licence means every resident is capable of following directions in an emergency and getting out of the building without staff assistance. Texas does not require Type A facilities to staff overnight the way Type B must.
Type B licence
Residents may need staff help to evacuate.
A Type B licence permits residents who cannot evacuate unassisted, who need help transferring, or who cannot reliably follow directions in an emergency. Texas requires more staffing — including overnight attendants — and stricter building and fire requirements than Type A.
This is general information, not medical advice. It describes what Texas and Medicare require, not what any particular person needs. Talk to your parent's physician about their specific situation.
What the licence does not tell you
A great deal. Texas publishes no star rating, no inspection score and no quality measure for assisted living — unlike nursing homes, where Medicare publishes all three. The licence type, the licensed capacity, the memory care certification and the ownership are close to the whole of the government record for an assisted living facility in this state.
So the licence tells you what a facility is permitted to do. It does not tell you what it is like to live there, and no page on this site claims to. Absence of a published rating is not a good rating — it is an absent one.
Reading a licence on a tour
A facility's licence type is public, and it is printed on that facility's page here. Two things are worth knowing before you walk in. First, a Type B licence does not mean the residents need more care than a Type A resident — it means the facility is allowed to accept residents who do. Second, a facility whose licence does not permit a level of care cannot lawfully accept someone who needs it, no matter how the tour goes.
The Type A facilities on this site
Listed alphabetically, not ranked. Texas publishes no rating for assisted living, so there is nothing here to rank them by.
Narrower views of the same licence records: state-certified memory care and small residential care homes.
Common questions
What is the difference between Type A and Type B assisted living in Texas?
It is about evacuation, not comfort or price. A Type A licence means every resident is capable of following directions in an emergency and getting out of the building without staff assistance. Texas does not require Type A facilities to staff overnight the way Type B must. A Type B licence permits residents who cannot evacuate unassisted, who need help transferring, or who cannot reliably follow directions in an emergency. Texas requires more staffing — including overnight attendants — and stricter building and fire requirements than Type A.
Is a Type B assisted living facility better than a Type A?
Neither licence is better. The licence describes who the facility is permitted to accept, not how well it cares for them. Texas publishes no star rating, no inspection score and no quality measure for assisted living of either type, so nothing in the state record ranks one facility against another.
How many assisted living facilities near Houston are Type A?
Of the 100 state-licensed assisted living facilities published on this site, 14 hold a Type A licence and 86 hold a Type B licence. Those counts come from the Texas HHSC licensing roster, July 2026.
Does a Type A licence mean the facility cannot take my parent?
It means the facility is licensed only for residents who can leave the building without staff help in an emergency. Whether a particular person meets that description is a clinical question for their physician and an admission question for the facility, and this page cannot answer either.
Browse the full list: every state-licensed assisted living facility published here, with licence type, capacity and ownership on each page.